Tag Archives: Second Sunday of Advent

In our modern world, people might hang calendars on their walls to keep track of what day it is. Folks keep track of appoints and birthdays on their smart phones with applications called iCalendar or Outlook. In school, students study a subject called History and have to learn dates on which important events happened, like December 7, “a day that will live in infamy!” In this day and age we have a thing called the Gregorian calendar, commonly used throughout the world, to tell us what moment in history it is. Back in the day of the Gospel writer, a unified calendar the world agreed upon as we know now didn’t quite exist. Instead, you’d situate an event with telling people who was in charge, maybe a reference to your particular cultures calendar might be thrown it. If I were to talk about an event that was announced last March 13th in the way Luke dates the appearance of John the Baptist I might say.

In the seventh year of the presidency of Barack Obama; in the first year of Bruce Rauner as Governor of Illinois; on the 22nd day of Adar, 5775 in the Jewish calendar and in the tenth year of Bishop Braxton’s ministry as Bishop of Belleville: The Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, Francis, declared a Jubilee Year of Mercy!

Luke’s announcement dates the appearance of John the Baptist proclaiming God was establishing a new era. It was in a time, Luke says, when there was a need for people to experience something other than the oppression of civil and religious leaders making life miserable for them. It was in a time when human cultures, Roman and Jewish and various sub—groups of Jewish observance, made knowing God as a loving God difficult. Politics, religious differences, governments all made it hard to believe God was in control and that peace among people was even possible. A new day, a time of favor was needed.

Things are not much different, today, are they?

People motivated by misdirected religious fervor take the lives of innocent civilians in foreign lands and in our own country. Politicians stir up fear among citizens of people who are “not like us” all the while vilifying one another as something almost evil, follow them and doom will descend. Violence, power and manipulating the fears of a population become the so-called solution to our problems.

Into this mess has come a voice, Like John the Baptist, who proclaims “Change your hearts, change your way of life! God loves humanity and forgives men and women. God can heal the hurt we cause one another. He desires reconciliation, he shows us mercy!” Pope Francis, in giving us a Holy Year (Jubilee of Mercy – official Vatican website), is reminding members of the church that violence and fear and manipulation are not God’s way of fixing the problems of the world, the church or our own individual lives. MERCY, forgiving wrongs and seeking to heal the hurts of the past are the way of true peaceful living. MERCY is God’s gift to humanity that will enable every person to know they are loved and need not see others as a threat to their existence, but a brother or sister seeking what all people want, a chance to live, to live in peace, now and forever.

This year will be a time to remember where we need not fear God but long for his coming into our hearts. The fact that God’s love can cure what’s wrong with humanity is revealed in Jesus who is “Merciful like the Father.” The Holy Father’s hope is that if we encounter how much we are loved by God in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and in the celebration of the Mass we will extend that love through Corporal and Spiritual Acts of Mercy towards others. We’ll cooperate with God’s mercy in building a more peaceful world. Recall that “corporal” has to do with taking care of the needs of the body, “Spiritual” with the needs of the soul and relationships between people. Corporal mercy is shown in feeding the poor or clothing the naked or caring for the sick. Spiritual mercy is shown when we help people turn away from sin or teach another something they were not aware of that will help them have a better life. These works of mercy are how God knocks down, how God will level the mountains of injustice that are the seemingly impossible boarders to cross between races. Valleys of fear of people who are different from us can be filled with spiritual and corporal works of mercy! As Pope Francis said in his homily at a Celebration of Reconciliation for Several Penitents with individual confession and absolution on the eve of the 4th Sunday of Lent last spring:

“Dear brothers and sisters, I have often thought of how the Church may render more clear her mission to be a witness to mercy; and we have to make this journey. It is a journey which begins with spiritual conversion. Therefore, I have decided to announce an Extraordinary Jubilee which has at its centre the mercy of God. It will be a Holy Year of Mercy. We want to live in the light of the word of the Lord: “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” (cf. Lk 6:36). And this especially applies to confessors! So much mercy!
I am confident that the whole Church, which is in such need of mercy for we are sinners, will be able to find in this Jubilee the joy of rediscovering and rendering fruitful God’s mercy, with which we are all called to give comfort to every man and every woman of our time. Do not forget that God forgives all, and God forgives always. Let us never tire of asking forgiveness. Let us henceforth entrust this Year to the Mother of Mercy, that she turn her gaze upon us and watch over our journey: our penitential journey, our year-long journey with an open heart, to receive the indulgence of God, to receive the mercy of God.”

On this 6th day of December of the year of our Lord 2015, let us rejoice that God is coming with MERCY in this moment of time, this era of History to help us, to show us how to change our lives so that we are ready to welcome him when he comes at the end of time, the conclusion of historical time.